Surface Texture / Morphology / Roughness
The AFM gives extremely high contrast on surfaces that are flat at the
nanometer scale. Optical and electron microscopes are not able to resolve
surface texture that is easily measured with the AFM. Applications include
the visualization of surface topography in both 2-d and 3-d perspectives,
line roughness measurements, and area roughness measurements. All of the
traditional area and surface roughness parameters can be calculated after
the AFM image is acquired.
Figure 6: (A) AFM image of a metal bonding pad on a semiconductor
device (B) Use of the AFM to measure line roughness of a polymer
sample (C) AFM image of polished silicon and the area roughness
of the silicon.
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